Five Strategies for Making Your Team More Cohesive

Cohesive teams are the foundation of your company’s success. So how do you turn a group of individuals into an actual team? The following five strategies can help.

Set ground rules for communicating. According to M.T. Wroblewski in her Chron article “Seven Strategies for Developing Cohesive Teams,” clear communication is essential to strong relationships and successful collaboration. Decide on a preferred method of communication — such as email or IM — and hold regular meetings so you can have group discussions.

Get everyone aligned behind a common goal. It’s critical that everyone on the team understands what your shared objective is, as well as what the company’s overall mission is. Discuss your goals and missions, explain why they’re important, and make it clear how each team member contributes to them.

Use job shadowing. By allowing the different team members to shadow each other for a day, you give them the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what their colleagues contribute. This can help them appreciate each other more both professionally and personally.

Schedule team building activities. As Jacqueline Whitmore points out in her Entrepreneur article “6 Ways to Build a More Cohesive Team,” team-building activities can help resolve conflicts and establish stronger bonds between employees. This translates into enhanced collaboration and improved communication in the office. Some appropriate team building activities include team outings, volunteering, and professional development seminars.

Celebrate the team’s accomplishments. If you’ve landed an account, completed a project, or had some other type of success as a team — celebrate it as a team. Treat your employees to a catered lunch or a dinner at a nice restaurant, or organize some kind of fun activity that everyone will enjoy. Your people will have a lot to talk about regarding the job, but in an informal setting, they can also get to know each other personally — and that can play an important role in team building.

Even as you see your team grow stronger over time, you should still employ these five strategies to ensure trust among your team members. Because when you have a cohesive team who trust one another, it’s easier to facilitate effective collaboration that leads to enhanced efficiency and productivity.